Return of the native

FORMER Fenland musician Sean Moyses is to return to Wisbech with his traditional jazz band as part of a three-week national tour. He will play at Elme Hall Hotel on Monday, March 5, with his Dusseldorf-based group, Rod Mason s Hot Five. Mr Moyses, regarde

FORMER Fenland musician Sean Moyses is to return to Wisbech with his traditional jazz band as part of a three-week national tour.

He will play at Elme Hall Hotel on Monday, March 5, with his Dusseldorf-based group, Rod Mason's Hot Five.

Mr Moyses, regarded as one of Europe's top professional banjo players, lived in West Walton before packing his bags and moving to Germany in 1996.

"I have many old friends who I would love to see, as well as many local jazz fans as possible, at the concert," he said.

It all started in the 1970s for Mr Moyses, when a friend of his father took a banjo to one of his Moyses Family Band concerts.

"It was unlike anything I had heard and I became so obsessed that after a week of harassing my parents, I was the owner of a ukulele-banjo," he said.

From there, he won the Junior Startime talent competition with his sister Hayley, also a professional musician, in 1978 and was himself part of the Moyses Family Band which became one of the best-known groups in the Fens throughout the 1980s.

"We appeared several times at the Angles Theatre and played many of the village halls in the area," he said.

Mr Moyses left for Germany in 1996 and formed his own rhythm band, playing alongside many well-known groups before joining Rod Mason's Hot Five.

Leader of the group, Rod Mason, is recognised as being one of the world's finest cornet players. John Mortimer, a former member of Acker Bilk's jazz band, is also a member.

- For more information, or to buy tickets for the concert, contact Jacqui Huggins on 01945 880959.